The Parenthood: a voice for parents

By FELICITY MOORE

For years, I’ve been blogging about my adventures in parenting. It has been a great way to connect with other parents and realise we share similar concerns about our kids’ future. We want the best education for our kids, but worry about the quality of our schools. We want our kids to eat nothing but healthy, homemade meals, but sometimes give in to their pleas for the brightly coloured package of cartoon character cereal.

I’ve often found myself thinking: there’s got to be something we as parents can do to make a change for our kids – and the job of being a parent just a bit easier.  There are 2.7 million families in Australia with kids under the age of 18. Together our voices can be really powerful.

That’s why I’m so excited about The Parenthood.

It’s a movement for parents like us, who want to make a difference for our kids, but don’t always know where to start or have enough spare time. Right now we’re building a broad base of parents from around the country and listening to their feedback on the issues that are most important.

Recently, we convened the first meeting of our Parents Advisory Group with a diverse group of parents from Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT to talk about the issues that matter most to parents and how we can work together create change. We talked about quality childcare, equality in education, and supporting parents and families of all shapes, sizes and varieties.

Check out what a few of members of our Parents Advisory Group had to say:

One issue that has come up over and over again both through our online survey and our Parents Advisory Group is junk food marketing to kids (an issue that’s near and dear to my heart as well). So last week, we took our first step in tackling that issue and launched a petition asking the grocery store ALDI to cut the crap from their balanced lunchbox initiative.

With ‘helpful’ in-store signage and a handy app that generates a menu and corresponding shopping list, ALDI’s balanced lunchbox initiative seems like a great way to help parents and kids come up with lunchbox menus that are healthy and that they actually like.

But here’s the problem: the menus include lots of unhealthy products and there is no in-store distinction between what’s actually good for kids and what’s not – with foods like tuna in spring water getting the same “balanced” lunchbox logo as chips or chocolate muesli bars.

The Parenthood will make it easy for parents to make a difference on issues that matter to us using all the tools at our disposal – from signing petitions to attending a local community event. Our goal is to listen to parents and develop strategic, targeted campaigns to make their voices heard by decision makers from the federal government and big businesses to local community leaders. What makes us different – and what will make us most effective – is that we’re driven by parent power and parent voices.

That’s where you come in. Right now, we really need to hear from parents like you. What are your biggest concerns when you think about your kids’ future? What are your biggest challenges as a parent?

Feedback from parents across Australia will help guide the issues that we’ll tackle together in the coming weeks and months.

The Parenthood is driven by parents like you and I. The more parents we have on board, the louder our voices will be, and the more we’ll be able to accomplish together.

I’m really excited to be a part of this new movement and I hope you join me on this journey.

Felicity Moore is a blogger, mum and campaign director for The Parenthood.